By Dr. Mickey Anders

South Elkhorn Christian Church
Lexington, Kentucky
October 11, 2009

Text: Mark 10:17-31

Flip Wilson had a weekly TV comedy show back in the 70s, and one of his favoritecharacters to portray was Brother Leroy. In one skit, Brother Leroy was leadingservices one Sunday morning. It wasn't going very well. People weren't veryresponsive. It came time to receive the offering and so Brother Leroy passedthe collection plates. They came back empty. So he passed them again. Samething. Empty. Brother Leroy then went before the people and said, "Now, I know that you all want this church to progress. This church must progress." No response from the congregation. Brother Leroy shouted a bit louder: "Now,before this church can progress it has to crawl, this church has got to crawl." And the congregation started getting excited and they yelled back, "Make it crawl, Reverend. make it crawl!" Brother Leroy continued, "After this churchhas crawled, it's got to pick itself up and start to walk, this church has gotto walk!" And the people yelled back at him, "Make it walk, Reverend. Make itwalk!" "And after this church has walked, this church has got to get up and run,this church has got to run." And the people were worked up into a terriblefrenzy, and they hollered back: "Make it run, Reverend. Make it run!" And thenBrother Leroy said, "Now, brothers and sisters, in order for this church to run,its gonna need money, its gonna take money for this church to run!" And thepeople yelled back, "Let it crawl, Reverend. Let it crawl!" (Wayne C. Dureck,PRCL, August 29, 2000)

Today is Stewardship Sunday. I hope you won't be responding by saying, "Let itcrawl, Reverend. Let it crawl!"

Our lectionary passage from Mark challenges every one of us about ourrelationship with our money. Most of us know this story as the story of therich young ruler, although Mark is the only one who suggests he is rich, Matthewis the only one who says he is young, and Luke is the only one who calls him aruler.

As Jesus is setting out on his journey to Jerusalem, an eager young manapproaches him. This man seems to be an ideal candidate to be a disciple ofJesus. He kneels before Jesus and asks, "Good Teacher, what must I do toinherit eternal life?"

His question shows his great respect for Jesus and his interest in matterseternal. His idea is that he can "inherit" eternal life. This word is wellchosen because it reflects the Jewish tradition that eternal life was often seenas a given, as something one inherited by being born right. For the Jews,belonging to the people of God was a matter of race. For Jesus, belonging tothe people of God was a matter of grace.

Instead of directly answering this man's question, Jesus first focuses on thatreference to "goodness." He replies, "Why do you call me good? No one is goodbut God alone." Then Jesus listed some of the Ten Commandments. In fact, helists numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 5. After the rather incomplete version of thecommandments Jesus recites to this man, he swiftly insists, "Teacher, I havekept all these since my youth" (v. 20).

Here was a man who had found the emptiness of success. He had the very thingsthat most of us think will bring us happiness. Most of us yearn all our livesfor the very things this man enjoyed.

First of all, he had a lot of money. That one suckers all of us. Our idledreams of being rich and famous fuel the spate of lotteries springing up inalmost every state of the union. We sit around trying to figure out how wewould spend our millions if we could just win the lottery.

The same motivation drives up the ratings on television shows like "Survivor"where the winner becomes an instant celebrity and wins a million dollars. Fromobscurity to stardom and wealth in just 39 days.

But here is a man who had all that, and his life was still empty. How manytimes is that story repeated? We could point to countless individuals likeElvis Presley and Michael Jackson who had all the money imaginable, but weremiserable all the same.

This young man also knows success in religious circles. He proves that evenobedience to the law leaves life empty and meaningless. He has kept all thecommandments from his youth, but he still has not found eternal life.

Most of us think that wealth and obedience will bring us happiness because wedon't have either one. But here is a man with both, and he has found theemptiness of such efforts. He is still searching, so he comes to Jesus lookingfor answers and for real meaning in life.

That's when Mark gives us a touching picture of Jesus who really understood thisman. Mark likes to add comments about Jesus "seeing" or "looking," and he oftentells what Jesus was feeling at a certain time. Here he combines those byobserving, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him�"

Jesus loves this young man because he can instantly tell he is serious about hisquest. No wonder Jesus loves him. He is ripe. He is ready for God. He hascome to the end of what he can do for himself , to the end of what money can dofor him, and to the end of what the law can do for him. Jesus knew he wouldmake an excellent disciple, but he lacked one thing.

While Jesus states that the man lacks "one thing," he actually gives him twocommands. First, he is to go, sell what he has and give it all to the poor.Second, he is to come and follow Jesus - a path that will lead him to theeternal life he seeks.

In Barbara Brown Taylor's fine sermon on this text, she writes this wonderfulparagraph:"It is a rich prescription for a rich man, designed to melt the lump in histhroat and the knot in his stomach by dissolving the burden on his back, thehump that keeps banging into the lintel on the doorway to God. It is aninvitation to become smaller and more agile by closing his accounts on earth andopening one in heaven so that his treasure is drawing interest inside that tinygate instead of keeping him outside of it. It is a dare to him to become a newcreature, defined in a new way, to trade in all the words that have describedhim up to now - wealthy, committed, cultured, responsible, educated, powerful,obedient - to trade them all in on one radically different word, which is free"(Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, Cowley Publications, Cambridge,Massachusetts, p.121-126).

You see, the opposite of rich is not poor. The opposite of rich is free. Hewas not free to take the hand of Jesus because his hand was too full of histhings and his love of things. He might as well have had a ball and chainaround his leg. He was not free to follow Jesus.

In fact, the meaning of "rich" may have less to do with how much money one hasas it does with what our attitude is about the money we have. Some people havea lot of money but they are not enslaved by it; others have very little but theycling to it with desperation.

I read in a book some time ago something about the art of trapping monkeys inIndia. One technique is to drill a hole in a coconut and place rice in thecoconut. A monkey will come along and stick a paw into the coconut, grab afistful of rice, and then be unable to pull its paw back from the coconut. Heis trapped by his greed. All he would have to do is turn loose of the rice, hishand would be free, and he could draw it out. The problem is that he placesgreater value on the rice that he is holding than he does on his freedom(Raymond Bailey, "Do You Want To Be Healed," Best Sermons 3, Harper & Row, p.6).

At some point, all of us will let go of our things, but it may be too late whenwe do. When Jesus told the rich man to give away all he had, he was simplyspeeding up the process that each of us must go through in our lives. We haveno choice but to give it all away. You will never see a hearse pulling a U-Haultrailer.

A very wealthy man died in a small town. One friend wanted to know the gossip,so he asked his friend, "How much did he leave?" His friend wisely replied,"Haven't you heard? He left it all!" And so will we!

Jesus knows that sooner or later everyone has to give it all away. We give itaway before we can enter heaven. Jesus told this one to give it away so that hecould have eternal life.

Some people have taken Jesus seriously in this challenge. Media mogul BobBuford, who has invested his fortune in the founding of enormously influentialLeadership Network, encapsulates his whole philosophy of giving with one line:`I want to bounce my last check.' Responding gleefully to Jesus' reminder thatwe aren't taking it with us so we'd better decide where it's going, Bufordbelieves that dying penniless is the point, not the problem. To Buford, whoalong with his other numerous gifts also matches the total contributions of hisemployees to local churches, "bouncing his last check" symbolizes that he hassuccessfully passed along all the good gifts he has received from God(Homiletics, 10/9/94).

Before co-founding Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller was a successfulbusinessman who followed his estranged wife Linda to New York to try to convinceher to come back to him. She was not easily convinced that he could turn backfrom his headlong rush for material wealth. Millard recalls: "We were in a taxiright after Linda and I had a very tearful session. We'd gone to Radio CityMusic Hall and they showed the movie Never Too Late. It was about a woman'sgetting pregnant after she thought it was too late. The message was that it'snever too late to change anything. I had a sensation of light in that taxi. Itwas not anything spooky. All I can say is it just came into my head: Give yourmoney away, make yourself poor again and throw yourself on God's mercy. I turnedto Linda and said, 'I believe that God just gave me the idea to give all ourmoney away; give everything away.'

"She said, 'I agree. Let's do it.'"

Friends, family, even pastors tried to talk them out of it. "I told them no, ifI think about it I won't do it, because it's not logical. But I believe that Godis calling us to do this" (Michael G. Maudlin, "God's Contractor," ChristianityToday, June 14, 1999, p. 46, quoted in Homiletics, 10/15/2000).

But in Mark's story, we find a man who can't bring himself to do it. He is nolonger enthusiastic but "shocked." This man is no longer eager; he is"sorrowful" or "grieving," "for he had many possessions." He judges the cost ofeternal life too high and sadly leaves.

Jesus doesn't call everyone to give away all they have. He simply wants us tounderstand the danger of money. As far as Jesus is concerned, money is likenuclear power. It may be able to do a lot of good in the world, but only withinstrongly built and carefully regulated corridors. Most of us do not know how tohandle it. We get contaminated by its power, and we contaminate others bywielding it carelessly ourselves.

Contrast the sadness of this rich man with the joy the disciples have infollowing Jesus. Look what they had left behind. Two of them had left theirfishing nets behind, two more of them a fishing boat (not to mention theirfather). Another one left a lucrative career, pushing his chair away from histax collector's desk to follow the strange man with the burning eyes. All ofthem had walked away from something, but not because it was a prerequisite forbecoming a disciple. It was more like a consequence, really. He called, theyfollowed, and stuff got left behind. Not because it was bad, but because it wasin the way. Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. He called,and nothing else seemed all that important anymore (Barbara Brown Taylor, ThePreaching Life).

Jesus presents each of us with a simple question about what kind of person wewant to be. Do we want to be like those monkeys in India losing their freedomwith their fist firmly clinched on a handful of rice? Or do we want to be likethe disciples whose priorities were so rearranged that their things just werenot all that important anymore?

And when you hear the call to stewardship in our church, I hope you will say,"Let it run, Reverend. Let it run!"